


Onomastics

by mithrel



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Introspection, M/M, Pet Names, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 04:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19243987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: Names were funny things.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally watched the Good Omens miniseries, and HOLY HECKING HECK, I thought nothing could be gayer than the source material, but I was (happily) mistaken!

Names were funny, really, how they changed you. Of course, Aziraphale and Crowley both had had a lot of names over the millennia, but that’s not what he’s talking about. Not precisely.

In the beginning, there wasn’t so much of a need for names. It was just the two of them, and a couple of humans, and of course they knew who they were. He’d call Aziraphale “Aziraphale,” and Aziraphale would call him “Crawly,” (which, for some reason, didn’t sit well with him, but he digresses.)

It started as an insult, a reminder of everything _not demon_ about him. When Aziraphale was being particularly exasperating, with the self-righteousness, or reminding Crowley (never snidely, oh no, it was always matter of fact) that he was a demon, he’d append a contemptuous “angel” to the end of his remarks. Two could play at that game.

But the more time they spent on Earth, the more Aziraphale mellowed, and while he still didn’t exactly keep up with the times, he did become more accepting of humanity’s foibles. And as Aziraphale mellowed, so Crowley’s use of “angel” as a name did as well. It became a fact, a shorthand, a sort of “hey you.” It might be said, more often than not, with a roll of his eyes, but the venom of earlier centuries had, somehow, departed.

And at some point, he’s not quite certain how or when, it became almost _fond,_ although he’d deny that from here to the ends of eternity if anyone dared to suggest it, and anyone who breathed the term “pet name” within ten miles of him would find himself choking on his own intestines.

Aziraphale, of course, never noticed anything.


	2. Chapter 2

Names were funny, really, how they changed you. Of course, Aziraphale and Crowley both had had a lot of names over the millennia, but that’s not what he’s talking about. Not precisely.

In the beginning, he’d called him “Crawly,” since that was his name (not that it suited him, it was altogether too nasty). And from around about the time of the Crucifixion, he’d called him “Crowley,” (which was a much more fitting name, not that anyone asked him).

The first time it happened, it was an accident, a slip of the tongue. He’d been in some village somewhere to accomplish some miracle or other, and Crowley had been slouching about, when there’d been screams farther up the road, and a runaway cart had careered down it. Most people got out of the way as fast as humanly possible, but a small child who’d been playing in the dust had frozen, eyes wide, transfixed by impending doom.

And before Aziraphale had been able to do anything, the cart abruptly fell to kindling, and the horses made a prodigious leap, landing beyond the terrified tot and continuing on out of the village.

Aziraphale had turned to Crowley, who was just lowering his hand, in something like astonishment. “Crowley, did you…”

“Don’t _look_ at me like that!” the demon had snarled, his cheeks rather redder than usual.

“But that…” he’d waved a hand toward the road, where the child was crying into the skirts of a woman, and the rest were babbling.

“I said _drop it,_ angel!” Crowley was studiously not looking at him.

“But, my dear–”

At that Crowley’s head had snapped up, his expression such a welter of emotions that Aziraphale couldn’t begin to decipher it.

He dropped it.

But it happened occasionally, over the centuries, usually when Crowley had engaged in “four-letter-word” conduct, and each time Crowley vehemently denied he’d done any such thing. And always, over the centuries, his expression after Aziraphale said it was so conflicted, so… _hopeless,_ that it was quite some time before Aziraphale said it again.

And he noticed, also, how Crowley’s insults became more a matter of form, with no bite behind them, how his use of “angel” became less contemptuous and more affectionate.

It took far longer for Crowley’s expression to remain as it always did when Aziraphale called him “dearest,” and even then his lips went thin and his eyes tight. And he began to flinch when Aziraphale touched him, though Aziraphale pretended not to notice.

He wasn’t quite sure how they’d got here, and definitely had no idea what to do about it.


End file.
